Ginger's Heart (a modern fairytale)
Read Ginger's Heart (a modern fairytale) Online
Authors: Katy Regnery
Ginger’s Heart
a m o d e r n f a i r y t a l e
Katy Regnery
GINGER’S HEART
a m o d e r n f a i r y t a l e
Once upon a time there were two cousins:
one golden like the sun,
one dark like midnight,
one a protector,
one a predator,
one a Woodsman
and
one a Wolf…
both owning equal,
but different,
parts of a little girl’s heart.
GINGER’S HEART
Copyright
© 2016 by Katharine Gilliam Regnery
Sale of the electronic edition of this book is wholly unauthorized. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part, by any means, is forbidden without written permission from the author/publisher.
Katharine Gilliam Regnery, publisher
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Cover by Marianne Nowicki
Developmental Editing by Tessa Shapcott
Copy and Line Editing by First Person Editing
Formatting by Cookie Lynn Publishing Services
Please visit my website at www.katyregnery.com
First Edition: March 2016
Katy Regnery
Ginger’s Heart : a novel / by Katy Regnery – 1st ed.
ISBN: 978-0-9909003-8-2
For George, Henry & Callie,
who share
my
heart.
♥ ♥ ♥
Dear Everyone Else,
Please
don’t read the last page first.
Love,
Every Author Breathing
(#andnotbreathing)
xo
~ Ginger ~
“Ginger, jump to me!” yelled fifteen-year-old Josiah Woodman, shoving a hand through his dirty-blond mop of hair. Gold as wheat in the late-afternoon sunlight, it was a perfect match to the pieces of straw that fell from the hayloft opening where she stood staring down at them.
Beside him, Cain Wolfram elbowed his cousin in the side as he grinned up at her. “Now, Miss Virginia, you ignore ole Woodman here and you jump to me, baby.”
Bae-bee.
The confident new twang in his voice made her twelve-year-old heart clutch and clamor. His black hair was almost blue, backlit by the sun, and his smile was as devilish as ever.
They were cousins, born to identical twin sisters not a week apart, and on account of their last names both starting with W, the whole town of Apple Valley, Kentucky, called them Double Dub or the Dub Twins. Well, the whole town except for Ginger. Because if anyone else knew Woodman and Cain as well as she did, they’d know that the cousins were nothing alike.
“Be smart, Gin,” said Woodman, his voice low and earnest, his moss-green eyes beseeching her as he beckoned her to come with a twitch of his callused fingers.
“You think your scrawny arms gonna catch her?” asked Cain, snorting.
He shucked off his jean jacket and threw it on a pile of hay outside the barn door, revealing a Harley-Davidson T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. His upper arms were well defined, thicker muscles as new as his twang, and Ginger eyed them greedily. He’d worked in her father’s barn for as long as she could remember, but just this past fall she’d noticed what every other girl in Apple Valley had noticed too: Cain Wolfram was filling out.
His blue eyes sparkled. “Jump to me, sweet thing.”
Only it sounded like “sweet thang,” and she gasped lightly, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth. Her legs felt a little like jelly as his eyebrows jerked up a fraction of an inch flirtatiously.
“Gin,” said Woodman, his familiar voice grounded and certain. Her eyes slid from Cain’s dark beauty to Woodman’s golden-boy handsomeness. “Come on, now.”
Cain looked askance at Woodman, his dimples caving his cheeks in a smirk that Woodman didn’t see. He was too focused on Ginger, never taking his eyes off her, not allowing anything to distract him from her.
But from two stories higher, Ginger could see them both perfectly, and when Cain fixed his eyes back on her, her belly swarmed with butterflies. He licked his lips and winked.
“Jump to the one you love the most, darlin’.”
Cain, Cain, Cain.
He had
always
played dirty.
“Dang it, Cain!” she cried, stomping her foot on the wooden plank and frowning at him. “Now you went’n wrecked it!”
“What’d I do?” he asked, his arms open, his eyes wide, the very picture of surprised contrition.
“You know I can’t choose between y’all. Not like that. That’s not how it works!”
“Nice goin’, jackass,” said Woodman under his breath, exhaling a satisfied breath and chuckling at Ginger’s sour puss.
They were supposed to catch her
together
. It was her annual birthday tradition, for heaven’s sake!
When she was only six, she went missing when it was time to cut the cake, and her mother sent the cousins to look for her. They found her sitting in the hayloft door, two stories high, insisting that she was a princess trapped in a tower. Cain encouraged the birthday princess to jump into their arms so they could take her back to the party. That stunt led to the first of Ginger’s many broken body parts wrought from Cain’s brash suggestions, and gave her parents a convenient excuse to bar Cain from future parties unless he was giving pony rides.
Her mother also forbade Ginger to ever go into the hayloft again.
Of course she
did
.
Every year. And every year since her seventh birthday, the cousins had somehow managed to actually catch her, safe and sound.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she shook her head disapprovingly at Cain, then turned around and marched through the dusty, dimly lit hayloft, which smelled of old wood, hay, and horses. Turning at the ladder, she backed down the rungs quickly, jumping to the floor when she was a little more than three-quarters of the way down. Walking through the drive bay, her riding boots clicking on the concrete floor, she passed six stalls on each side before exiting out the side door where she found the handsome cousins waiting for her.
“Ain’t jumpin’ this year?” asked Cain, smirking at her, his roughened fists resting on lean, denim-covered hips.
“Ain’t jumpin’ to
you
,” she said, turning up her nose.
“You’re poutin’, Gin,” said Woodman, reaching for her folded arm to loosen it.
“And
y’all
are supposed to catch me together! Couldn’t choose between the two of you if my life depended on it! That’d be like choosin’ between my hands and my feet!”
Cain laughed, his eyes so blue she could barely force herself to look away.
“Well, darlin’,” he drawled, “at least your momma won’t come after us with a danged fryin’ pan this year.”
Ginger flicked her eyes to Woodman, whose shoulders trembled with laughter. Magnolia McHuid, dressed to the nines for her daughter’s sixth birthday party, chasing after the Dub Twins with a frying pan was another of Ginger’s favorite birthday memories. It had almost made the searing pain in her broken arm worthwhile.
Woodman’s fingers slid down Ginger’s arm to her hand, and he uncurled her fingers, clasping them in his.
“Shouldn’t be jumpin’ out of barn doors anymore anyway,” he said gently. “You’re twelve now. A young lady.”
Ginger whipped her head to face him with a frown. Something about his words prickled and annoyed her, but she didn’t linger on it. Cain made sure of that.
“A young lady!” he exclaimed, leaning down to grab his jean jacket and shrug it over his broad shoulders. “Whoo-ee! What a joke! Woodman, you only see what you want to see, cuz!”
“She’s
twelve
,” muttered Woodman, straightening his back, his fingers tightening around Ginger’s.
“’Zactly!
Twelve.
She’s a kid.” Cain chucked her under the chin. “And if you ain’t jumpin’, missy, I’ve got places to be.”
Her heart lurched, and she tugged her hand from Woodman’s to place it on Cain’s arm. “But there’s cake!”
“Got somethin’ sweeter’n cake waitin’ for me,” said Cain, winking at her. “Not to mention, we all know I ain’t invited to Miz Magnolia’s festivities.”
“We’ll run up and git you some!” Distraught at the notion of Cain spending her birthday with another girl, she dug her fingers into his arm.
“No, thanks.”
“You can’t just
leave!
”
“Ouch! Am I missin’ somethin’ here?” asked Cain, jerking his arm away and rubbing over the spot she’d clawed. “Hell, yes, I’m leavin’. I got plans. But before I go, since you’re such a
young lady
now, Miss Virginia, I guess I could give you a birthday kiss, huh?”
He took a step toward her, the steel toe of his work boot kicking up some dust between them. His blue eyes cut to hers, dancing and sparkling as he approached, looking down into her face. She gasped as she felt his palm land on her left cheek, his skin scratchy but warm. Her heart raced mercilessly, poundingpoundingpounding behind her budding breasts, making her breathless and dizzy. He leaned toward her, his face nearer and nearer, until she could smell him—the tang of his sweat, the spice of his deodorant, the scent of earth and horses and the BBQ ribs he must have had for lunch all mixed up together. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she held her breath, tilting her chin up so he could . . . so he could . . .
His lips—soft and warm—landed on her cheek, and the millions of butterflies already gathered in her chest spread their fluttering wings and beat them against her heart.
His voice, close to her ear, slow and thick as honey, whispered, “Happy birthday, lionhearted l’il gal.”
When her eyes finally fluttered open, he was already swaggering away.
She watched him go—the confident forward motion of his long strides, his tight butt in faded Levi’s, his too-long black hair curling over the collar of his beat-up jacket and glistening in the sun. He was going to someone “sweeter’n cake” and leaving her behind. And though Ginger couldn’t possibly offer Cain what seventeen-year-old Mary-Louise “Big Tits” Walker could willingly provide in some nook or cranny down by the abandoned distillery, it sure did hurt her heart to watch him walk away.
“Oh,” she murmured, the sound small and pathetic on the evening breeze.
Woodman’s hand landed on her back.
“Don’t fuss over him,” he said, his tone annoyed as he watched his cousin go. “He’s always been a jackass, Gin.”
Ginger flashed her eyes up at her friend. “He isn’t!”
Woodman pursed his lips and gave her a “quit bein’ stupid” look, which made her cheeks flush. She dropped her gaze, kicking at the dirt under her boot.
“He’s your cousin,” she said softly.
“And don’t I know it,” muttered Woodman disdainfully.
She looked up to see Woodman brush a piece of hay off his blue gingham buttoned-down dress shirt. He’d dressed up for her party today—crisp khaki pants with an ironed crease down the middle and a fancy-pants new shirt. His hair was held in place with some kind of slick glop, making him look like a junior banker, which made a weird sort of sense since his daddy, Howard Woodman, was president of the Apple Valley Savings and Loan. She glanced forlornly down the lane at Cain. Josiah Woodman would never show up at a party in a torn-up T-shirt and beat-up jeans, even to catch a princess jumping from her tower. He knew better than that. But for some reason Woodman’s Sunday clothes irritated Ginger now, like they felt somehow superior to Cain’s simple duds, and she frowned at him, feeling unaccountably defensive.
“He’s gonna catch somethin’ nasty from Big Tits Walker,” she said, hoping to shock him.
Woodman’s eyes widened for just a moment before the edges of his mouth tilted up. He chuckled softly in surprise and nodded, tilting his head to the side as he stared at her. “I guess that’s possible.”
His smile quickly faded, and his gaze became uncomfortably searing, so Ginger looked away again, her eyes seeking one last glimpse of Cain. He was just a speck in the distance now, making his way down the long country road that followed the Glenn River and led to the distillery.
“You should go after him,” she said, “and . . . and, I don’t know, ask him to go for a joyride on Daddy’s tractor or—”
“I’m
not
goin’ after him,” said Woodman gently. His voice was firm as he reached for her hand and pulled her away from the barn, back toward the party. “First off, wouldn’t do any good. You know Cain as well as I do. He’s goin’ where he’s goin’, and nothin’s goin’ to get in his way but God or weather. Second? Pardon me, Gin, but I’m not cockblockin’ my only cousin. He might be a jackass, but that don’t mean I don’t love him. And third? Your momma’s fixin’ to bring out the cake any minute, and there’ll be hell to pay if you’re not there to blow out twelve pretty candles.”
Taking one final look down the road, she let loose a long sigh as she realized Cain was not coming back and Woodman was right. Her mother would have a fit if she missed the cake. But Ginger’s heart ached to know that the same lips that had just brushed her cheek with such tenderness would be used for far less chaste activities for the rest of her birthday.
Her mother would say that she was too young to love Cain the way she did, with a full thumping heart and her preteen body going hot and cold whenever he came near. She knew this, and yet she couldn’t seem to help herself. Her parents and Gran—and even Woodman—had fussed over her since her broken-heart episode when she was five, always telling her what she could and, more often,
couldn’t
do. Cain was the only one who seemed to recognize that she was just as strong as anyone. He was the only one who challenged and dared her, who pushed her, who made her feel like she could do anything. He was an unlikely oasis from the smothering care of others who loved her, and she adored him for it. And most of the time, when Cain said “jump,” Ginger jumped, without thought or regard for the safety of her arm . . . or her good-as-new heart.
“Christ! You’re so quiet. Quit fussin’ over Cain,” said Woodman, an impatient edge to his usually gentle voice. “It’s your birthday, and I still haven’t given you your present yet.”
Looking up at him, she relaxed her hand in his and matched his stride, walking around the barn and looking up to see McHuid Manor on top of the green, rolling hills of her childhood home. The arch over the driveway bore a sign that read “McHuid Farm” and, just under it, “Ranger Jefferson McHuid III, horse breeder.” As her mother was quick to boast, her father was the “premier” horse breeder of Glenndale County, Kentucky, and for as long as Ginger could remember, McHuid Farm had hosted the wealthiest, most discerning horse buyers in the world.
In fact, her birthday party today included only five children—from Apple Valley’s most important families, of course—and about fifty adults from Lord only knew where whom her mother and father had invited. Like most of her other birthdays, the party was much more about everyone else in the world than it was about Ginger, which made Woodman’s thoughtfulness all the more precious to her.